Looking At Our Futures

Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday. ~Author Unknown




my career plans

        I don't guess I ever really worried that much about my future when I was young, but I did think about it.  I dreamed, pondered, and planned.   When I was in junior high, Mr. Dinsmore, my social studies teacher gave us an assigned project to research our five top career choices.  Each student was required to prepare a report of the requirements and preparation necessary to achieve our careers, expected financial outcomes, job descriptions, and any other relevant facts related to our career choices.

         My choices, in order of most preferred to least, were professional entertainer, musician, writer, photographer, and teacher.  By my senior year of high school, though these choices were still part of my dreams, I decided to attend university and major in psychology with the intent of being a psychologist of some sort.  After the first year I switched my major to English and started leaning toward a teaching career. I also began writing, submitting, and getting rejections.  It seemed I was on my way to becoming a professional student.

The Real World of Work

          Eventually as best laid plans will often go, I dropped out of school as I was nearing graduation.  As fate would have it, or dreams would materialize, I began working with a touring show as a performer.  Though I had grown up working in professional entertainment with my family, I was now working on my own as a paid performer. Future dream number one accomplished.

           After a couple years I was married and got off the road to await the birth of our first child, settling temporarily in Richmond, Virginia.  While there, I was hooked up with a dinner theater where the show director discovered I played violin, which was exactly what they were trying to find for an upcoming show.  I had to join the musicians union and I began playing nightly in a musical called "The Robber Bridegroom".   Dream number two had been attained.

            For the next decade I continued as a performer and manager of a touring theatrical company called "World of Fantasy Players".   I was living my dreams in the most wonderful way.  Then I spent another nearly twenty years as a manager of a distribution company, which turned out to be a near perfect job for raising my daughters and being able to play an active role in their lives.

            Currently I'm at least writing, but yet to have anything truly notable published.  I am immersed in writing again like I had been in college.  So I am working on that dream now.  I also take pictures now and then to put on my blog posts--okay maybe that's a stretch, but it wasn't my biggest dream.  I did a stint of substitute teaching years ago in Tennessee.  I at least had a taste and who knows what the future holds on that one.

             If there is any point to any of this I guess it's that dreams of childhood can often become realities if we keep thinking about them.  I guess I'd go as far to say they will become realities to some extent if we maintain focus.  I still dream about my future even though I'm heading towards sixty.  Why not? The future keeps coming and I'm not going to stop it.  Might as well plan for tomorrow as long as I'm thinking about it.

What's Your Plan?

           Are you doing anything like what you dreamed about when you were a kid?  What changed after you graduated from high school?   Or if you're still in school, what are you doing to get ready for your future?  Do you plan your life much or do you just basically take each day as it comes?   What are the dreams that you once had that you don't think you'll ever fulfill?   Do you tend to worry about your future?